Daily Bulletin

Thursday, January 29, 1998

President meets the parade

Yesterday's National Day of
Action, organized by the Canadian Federation of Students brought
demonstrations in many cities, including one that tied up traffic in
Toronto's business district.
About 150
students settled in at the headquarters of the Canadian Imperial Bank of
Commerce, and the occupation is still going on this morning. Photo from
CBC Newsworld.

About thirty demonstrators stopped off at Needles Hall in
mid-afternoon yesterday to give UW president James Downey a
petition in honour of the "national day of action" on tuition
fees and student debt.

Downey took the elevator down to the first floor of NH and spoke to
the demonstrators for about five minutes. He answered some questions,
endured some heckling, and made a point or two about the balance
between low tuition fees and high quality of university education.
He also accepted the petition, saying he'd bring it to the
attention of UW's board of governors (which meets next Tuesday)
but reiterating that the official voice of undergraduate students at UW is the
Federation of Students, not a parade of demonstrators.

Students in the protest group, which made the rounds of campus
following a rally in the Student Life Centre, asked Downey why
he hasn't been more forceful in pushing the Ontario government
for greater funding of post-secondary education. "Have you ever
tried screaming at politicians?" he replied, and urged them to
"change the government" if they want changes in government policy.

Downey defended his support for deregulated tuition fees, saying that
if universities had the freedom to set their own fees, some students
might actually pay less rather than more. He recalled that when he
was president of the University of New Brunswick, which does have
the authority to set its own fees, he could use that as a
bargaining chip with the premier of New Brunswick, warning that
fees would go up, with the natural political fallout, if government
funding were not improved.

A statement issued Monday afternoon from UW's information office
quotes Downey as saying that "University underfunding and student
debt are very serious issues for which we must must find solutions".
Downey adds: "The university actively consults students on fee
issues," through the Provost's Advisory Committee on Student Fees.

The statement says UW officials are "in constant dialogue" with
the Federation, "supports" its decision not to take part in yesterday's
events, and "applauds" plans such as the National Student Debt Day
that's set for Monday.

Organized by the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, of which
the UW Federation is a member, the day will feature information sessions
at campuses across Canada, including a talk at UW by Murray Baker,
author of The Debt-Free Student.

PM speaks on student aid

Prime minister Jean Chrétien said yesterday that details of
the planned Millennium Scholarship Fund have been worked out and
will be announced in the next federal budget,
Canadian
Press reports:

Until now government sources had indicated that details wouldn't be settled
until just before the budget, since the amount of cash available depends on the
final financial projections for the fiscal year that ends March 31.
There has also been debate over whether the money should be
awarded on merit, as originally proposed, or be doled out on the basis of need.

Chretien wouldn't be pinned down on details. They will likely not come until
Martin tables his budget, although the prime minister didn't rule out an
earlier date. . . .

Student groups and provincial premiers have also been clamoring for an
overhaul of the existing Canada Student Loans program, and Liberal insiders
say [finance minister Paul] Martin will likely act to ease repayment
terms to lessen the debt burden faced by graduates.

The scholarships were
announced in
September in the Throne Speech. Martin's budget is expected in late
February.

Science event next week

"The challenge of creating businesses from the results of university
based research" will be addressed by academics, students, legal
and technical experts, and business leaders at the Fourth Annual
Science/Technology -- Business/Law Partnerships Conference to be held
next week (February 5 and 6) in the Davis Centre.

Hosted by the UW faculty of science, the conference will bring together
local university and business leaders, representatives from granting
agencies, science and business students from Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier
University and other campuses, including a contingent of graduate
students from the business law program at Syracuse University.

Forums will focus on Women in Science, Technology and Business; The
Emerging Company; and Innovation at Waterloo. The conference will close
on Friday with a talk on Future Trends in Technology by Jiang Wei Ping,
director of the department of international science and technology
cooperation, Shenzhen Municipal People's Government Science and
Technology Bureau in China.

For more information or to register,
contact Helena Hahn at ext. 2101 or Rose Armstrong at ext. 5296, in
the dean of science office.

Help on the Internet

The InfraNet Project
today presents Jamie Roberts of the IBM Canada Laboratory, speaking
on "Customized Help on the Internet? The Promise and Problems of
Dynamic Information Delivery".
Says Roberts in an abstract:

How people receive different kinds of information, what they can do with it, how
timely it should be, how easy it is to access, how integrated it is with
their daily experience, how applicable it is to them personally -- these are
all ways that Web technologies have changed people's information experience.

One of the most interesting elements of this change in expectation is the
convergence of user assistance goals with Web, Intranet and Internet
technologies. The promise of delivering online help or computer-based
training to people from a network, in a fashion that customizes information
for people, and in a way that matches their expectations from other kinds of
"assistance experiences", is one way that the Internet will transform many
of the ways we think about information. User assistance information can
finally lend dynamic perspective to build complex contexts for its audience.

In keeping with this promise, Microsoft, for one, has announced and deployed
a suite of network content tools and platforms. IBM too, has tried to take
advantage of this promise with a corporate Information Architecture that
addresses user assistance information on the Internet and Intranets.

Coupled with this promise, however, are some tremendous technical and
artistic difficulties.

The truth about God

"Are there objective truths about God?" asks William Craig of the
Talbot School of Theology, whose answer apparently is yes: "He will
examine the challenges of three schools of modern thought to objective
truth about God and attempt to show that each challenge is self-defeating."
Craig, author of ten books and more than 80 papers, is guest speaker at a
dinner at the University Club tonight.

John North of UW's department of English is hosting the event on
behalf of the New Scholars Society, which is, he explains, "a loosely
affiliated interdenominational group of Christian faculty members
representing most orthodox Christian church groups. The society has
sponsored similar lectures at five Canadian universities this
academic year." A talk by Craig at the University of Guelph last
night was described by one listener as the best lecture he'd heard
in thirty years in the academic world.
For more information, North can be reached at ext. 3743.

All the way to Florida

Nathan Dietrich may not be a math major, but he's done his
homework for the Run to Florida Village fund-raiser for the Waterloo
Region Food Bank tomorrow and Saturday.
He figures it's 2,500 kilometres from here to Florida, which equals 11,974
laps of the 220-metre indoor track at the Waterloo Recreation Centre. If
200 people run 57 laps each -- that's just 12 km over a 24-hour period
-- the goal is in sight.

Organized by Dietrich and Adam Promoli, both student dons in
the Villages, the event is one of a series of fundraising activities
to benefit this year's Village charity. While the rec centre doesn't
have Disney or Dunedin,
runners can come in from the cold to join a relay team and
help the Food Bank. Participants will collect pledges for the run, and
be eligible to win prizes donated by local businesses. Students,
staff and faculty are invited to join in the run from noon on Friday
until noon Saturday.

More information is available from Dietrich at 725-9792 or Promoli at 725-7065.

Events of a slippery day

Warriors victorious

The basketball
Warriors travelled to Guelph last night and defeated the the CIAU #8
ranked Guelph Gryphons with a convincing 75-52 win. This report
reaches us courtesy of Martin Timmerman, who
maintains
the
Warrior basketball web page.

An "internship fair" will run from noon to 5 p.m. in the
Conrad Grebel College cafeteria, with people from several organizations
(and the
peace and
conflict studies program) there to talk about "hundreds of
opportunities to work, study or volunteer in a variety of local
and international settings".

The Student Services Network Group will meet at 1:30 in
Environmental Studies I room 221. Highlight of the agenda: Peter Birch,
of the local school board's employee assistance program, talking on
"Taking Care of Ourselves". Information: ext. 2752.

The current series of career development seminars winds up
today with "Job/Work Search Strategies" at 1:30 in Engineering Lecture
Hall room 101, and "Choose Your Own Adventure: The Entrepreneurial
Advantage" at 2:30 in Needles Hall room 1020.

The joint health and safety committee, representing UW
management and employees, will meet at 2:30 in General Services
Complex room 302. On the agenda: everything from "knife training
programs" to last month's injuries and fires.

Toronto sculptor and educator Ian Carr Harris speaks tonight as the
architecture school's Arriscraft Lecture series resumes.
His talk, at 7:30 in the Environmental Studies II green room, is
on "Tracings: Writing, Art and Architecture".